Unfounded Fears
by hollow echos
Summary: Tag to The Jail House Job. Nate realizes what he did was wrong in lying to the team. Eliot's there to tell him everything will be ok. This fic fulfills the hc bingo prompt toothache.


**Title:** Unfounded Fears  
><strong>Genre: <strong> Family, hurt/comfort  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> ~4,000  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13 (language)  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Eliot/Nate friendship  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>None  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Tag to The Jail House Job. Nate realizes what he did was wrong in lying to the team. Eliot's there to tell him everything will be ok. This fic fulfills the hc_bingo prompt toothache. Written for sheryden.

**Author's Note:** A huge shout out goes to Rusting_roses for her lightening fast beta.

-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-

"_**You want to know what I do to people who pull cons on their own people, Nate? People who almost get people killed because they are so out of control?" Eliot inquired.**_

"_**Are we ok, Eliot?" Nate asked nervously, eying the drill in the hitter's hand. **_

-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-

**Unfounded Fears**

Eliot knew that Nate wasn't fond of dentists. That much had become apparent when their mastermind had been serving his stint in prison. Eliot had found his way into the secure facility under the guise of a physician. In order to sneak a few minutes in private to brief Nate on their con, he'd pretended to possesses dental experience too.

He'd popped Nate up in the chair and secured him in restraints. Just for show, Eliot had reassured Nate when he'd gotten a bit of a wild look in his eyes. Perhaps it was true enough, though, that he'd also wanted to intimidate their leader a bit, to remind him that if he _ever _dared to pull the wool over their eyes again, if he ever hurt his family like that ever again, he'd have Eliot to face.

The look in Nate's eyes, however…He'd rolled that blinding light into Nate's face and started playing with the drill. The noise had really been the thing to set off the spark of fear in the man's eyes. That look had halted the angry tirade that Eliot had been preparing for months before he even got past the opening words.

"Let me up, Eliot," Nate demanded. Perhaps wanting to soften his tone, to coax Eliot into a better humor, he spoke again in a low, carefully calm voice that held just a hint of something frightened, "Please"

The hitter had silenced his comm for few minutes and unbuckled the restraints just as Nate was starting to pull against them. Eliot could see Nate's pulse fluttering in his throat, the way the man swallowed dryly. The normally composed man was on his feet a second later, facing the wall and working to slow his breathing.

The hitter had stepped out of the room to give Nate some privacy to regroup. Eliot had gone to check on Nate's prisoner friend and check in with the guard. When he returned the only evidence of the experience was a faint sheen of sweat on Nate's brow that he wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been looking for it. Nate didn't offer any explanations, Eliot had the decency and the smarts not to ask, and they had moved on through the rest of the con briefing without further incident.

-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-

"You're not eating my food," Eliot remarked as Nate sat down at the table. Not his normal spot, either. Usually he took up a position at the head of the table, stating without words that he was the head of their odd little family. The fact that he'd taken Parker's seat along one of the longer sides suggested that he wasn't interested in the attention he normally commanded.

Nate shrugged and stirred his oatmeal with his spoon. He didn't even glance in the hitter's direction, instead keeping his gaze on the bowl before him. Eliot regarded him critically in the dim light. Had Nate been sleeping well recently? It didn't look like it. "I'm just not in the mood for a roast tonight. Maybe save me some of the beef and I'll throw it into a sandwich for lunch tomorrow?"

Eliot frowned. This was normally one of Nate's favorite dishes. He'd made it specifically for Nate to celebrate another instance of him pulling their asses out of the fire just in the nick of time and managing to organize a last-minute plan to successfully pull off the con to boot. Nate hadn't ever turned this meal down before. He deposited the steaming pot on the folded towel laid out on the table to prevent it from charring the hardwood.

He then purposefully strode around the table and plopped down in the seat next to Nate. Depositing the pot holders on the table, he turned to Nate. See him avoid the attention now, Eliot mused to himself, _Hard to ignore the guy sitting right next to you_. "You feeling ok?"

"Fine," Nate responded coolly before blowing on his oatmeal-laden spoon and swallowing the bite.

"You asked me when I was going to make this meal again last week, remember?" Eliot prodded, unable to help himself.

Nate nodded. "I did…and I'm sorry I'm not partaking this evening. But like I said, I'm just not in the mood." He flashed Eliot a brief and utterly false smile.

Eliot watched the man carefully spoon another bite of the mush into his mouth. He closed his mouth around it daintily, a far cry from his normally-voracious eating habits. "You're really eating that store-boxed crap instead of my homemade meal?" he asked. It might've come off a bit harsher than he meant it to, but this wasn't like Nate at all and it was starting to worry him. In some ways Nate was as bad as Eliot himself when it came to asking for help when he needed it.

When Nate didn't answer- didn't even glance at Eliot- the hitter found himself gritting his teeth in annoyance. He let out a slow breath, though, to compose himself. He of all people knew that sometimes people just had bad days. "Fine, stick to your oatmeal," Eliot said, relenting. Nate was damnably stubborn on the best of days. "But I cooked this meal for _you. _The least you can do is at least sample it while it's fresh. Refrigerating it overnight kills the flavor."

"Fine," Nate sighed.

He allowed Eliot to dish him up a tiny morsel of the dish. Just barely more than a spoonful of tender meat and a chopped potato wedge and a cooked carrot. Nate looked at the dish like it was something out of his worst nightmare. He steeled himself, wrapping his fork in a white-knuckle grip and lifting a bit of the food to his mouth. He began to chew the meat slowly before jerking his head up sharply. A pained expression crossed his face and Nate's hand flew to press against his lower right jaw. He forced himself to swallow the bite and then started breathing hard, his unoccupied hand closed in a fist on the table.

"You're hurt," Eliot remarked. It wasn't a question.

"I'm…I'm fine," Nate snapped.

"That's obviously the case. You know, I do pride myself on the fact that my food doesn't normally cause the people eating it physical pain." Eliot used his dry wit to his advantage, hoping to set Nate at ease. The hitter's wry humor was usually enough to startle at least a quick flash of a smile from the older man.

Nate opened his mouth to respond.

"You know, if you keep insisting that you're okay then I'm going to have to insist that you humor me and the hours I've spent preparing this meal. I'd insist that you eat a full meal if only to fully enjoy it all proper like," Eliot thought aloud.

"Fine," Nate said, giving in at the prospect of having to eat a full meal. "I have a tooth that's been bugging me a bit these last few days."

"And you didn't think it might be a good idea to get it checked out?" Eliot chastised the man as he dished up his own plate.

"I'm sure it's just a fluke and I'll feel better in a few days."

"Hey guys! What's for dinner?" Parker interrupted. Seeing that Nate had taken her usual seat she returned the favor, plopping down at the head of the table, an obnoxious grin growing on her face. It was clear she enjoyed the idea of being the leader. Eliot half expected her to swing her feet up to rest on the wood.

"Nate decided to mix things up a bit tonight," Eliot responded.

"Like musical chairs?" Parker asked, suddenly excited. "I can go get Hardison to bring in his laptop! Oooh. We could play music and-"

"Another time, Parker," Eliot responded, wanting to put that idea to rest before she got too set on it. Somehow, playing musical chairs while feeling under the weather was probably the last thing he imagined Nate would want to do.

Before Parker could protest, however, the others filed in and the meal began in earnest. Eliot left Nate to his oatmeal and the others didn't see reason to question it. After the impromptu team celebration, filled with their usual good humor and effervescent chatter, the others had filed out. Eliot was left clearing the table while Nate took thimble-sized bites to finish off his bowl of oatmeal.

Eliot didn't like that man had no appetite. "I made you a dentist appointment," he said.

Nate shot him a dangerous expression. "I didn't ask for that."

"Yeah, well it's obvious you need it. So I took the liberty of setting one up with a dentist I know," he responded slyly. Keeping a working relationship with the dentist was important when job hazards included getting your teeth kicked in, in the very literal sense.

"I'm not going," Nate rebuked, dropping his spoon into the empty bowl. The clattering noise broke the tension-filled silence.

Eliot paused in wiping up the table. He knew this was when he should bide his time and wait for Nate's pain to grow until he had no other choice. Short of tying him up and throwing Nate over his shoulder, it was Eliot's only choice. "We'll see," he responded. "We'll just have to see, I suppose."

-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-

Eliot led a disoriented Nate into the apartment and over to the couch where he let him sink down into his couch cushions. The hitter knelt down and untied his teammate's shoes; depositing them underneath the end table where they wouldn't become a tripping hazard to Nate should he get off the couch.

As he stood up, he noticed that Nate had started listing to the side and was almost ready to slide onto the floor. "Whoa there, Nate. Not so fast." He pulled Nate's arm over his own shoulder and hauled him back up onto the couch. He pulled his feet up onto the cushions, effectively laying him into a reclining position on the couch.

"You doing ok there?" he asked Nate.

"Would be if it wasn't for that stupid dentist," he complained.

"You had an infected wisdom tooth. You should be grateful that he cleared his schedule to pull your teeth and solve the problem. It should alleviate the pain."

"It hurts _more," _Nate muttered as he rubbed as his cheek. "They could've just taken the infected one instead of all of them."

Eliot grabbed his hand and lowered it to the couch. "Leave it be, you're only going to mess up the good dentist's work like that. Or pull your stitches, which would mean another trip back to his office."

Nate actually managed to stop his wandering eyes and fix a panicked stare staunchly at Eliot then. "That wouldn't be…ideal," Nate suggested.

Eliot shook his head, laughing a bit. Even drugged to the gills, Nate could still manage to make sarcastic quips. It really was a key tenant of the man's personality. "Indeed. Alright, here's the remote," Eliot said, depositing the device into Nate's hand after he'd flipped it on for him. "Now stay put, I'm going to get you an ice pack so you can keep down the swelling, okay?"

He took Nate's grunt as an affirmative and moved off into the kitchen. One more worried glance over his shoulder before he turned the corner proved that Nate was following his instruction and staying on the couch. That, or the drugs were making him dizzy enough where running off didn't make a good prospect. He hated drugs himself and seeing Nate like this wasn't the outcome he'd had going in this morning.

Eliot padded over the fridge, filling a Ziploc bag to the brim with ice before sealing it and going to rifle underneath the sink in the cabinet there for a towel to wrap in it. No, Nate hadn't been any better this morning. If anything, he'd been worse. Even the prospect of drinking water spooked the man; the cool liquid washing over his tooth when he'd brushed his teeth had left him hissing in pain.

Eliot hadn't even had to press that hard to get him into the car for the dentist's appointment. That on its own had been worrisome. Nate wasn't the kind to just give up a fight in the first round- he was the sort of man who needed to have no other option before bending to another's will. Yet all through their car ride he'd been silent save for a grunt here or there in pain if they went over a large bump and it rattled his jaw. Eliot had good reason to curse the poor conditions of the city roads and insufficient funds to care for city infrastructure that morning. For all he'd gotten hurt much worse before and knew that Nate hadn't fared much better, there was something all the more painful about this little inconvenient domestic ache. Something this little didn't have the right to make Nate look so haggard and wan.

Still, it wasn't like he had any knowledge of dentistry. Thus, Eliot had had been able to do no more than walk at Nate's side and sign him in. He'd been settled into a chair in the waiting room to do just that, wait, when Nate had pinned him with a stare, a glimmer of fear in his eyes and several creases in his brow. Eliot hadn't needed to ask, he'd risen to his feet and followed Nate back and remained in the room through the duration of the visit. Eliot had already spoken to the dentist on the phone that morning, warning him that Nate wasn't good with stuff like this and to explain everything he was doing as he did it. Nate had a calculating mind like that; he took comfort in knowing the inner workings of everything going on around him.

Even after they'd knocked Nate out for the procedure Eliot had remained at Nate's side. Most dentists wouldn't allow for that because a tooth removal, let alone four, was a bloody business. Eliot had assured the man he'd seen worse in his own time and he wouldn't faint. He hadn't, either. He'd stood in the corner the entire time. When Nate had started to wake up he'd knelt down by his side, whispering in his ear where he was and what they were doing there. He knew what it was like to come off anesthesia, the disorientation-the feeling like the floor had been dropped out beneath you and you were waking up in a strange place-it was the part he hated the worst.

Eliot wrapped the ice in the towel he'd found and quickly crossed back over in the living room. Nate was sunk down further into the couch, his breathing strained. One hand was knotted around a blanket that rested over the armrest. The controller had been abandoned to the floor and the TV had been flipped to the weather channel and muted.

Eliot pressed the ice up against Nate's cheek. Expecting the recoil, he rolled with the motion and didn't allow the ice to break contact with Nate's skin.

"That's cold," Nate muttered, eyes still closed. He sounded more exhausted than anything else.

Eliot chuckled lightly. "That is the general idea. How's your pain?"

"Scale one to ten? Six," Nate groaned. He did close a hand over the ice pack though, holding it in place and allowing Eliot to free his hands.

Eliot nodded, producing the Vicodin container that the dentist had prescribed from his pocket. He popped the lid and presented a pill in one hand and a water bottle in the other.

Nate peeked one eye open. "Great. I just got over the alcoholism, now you're going to go and addict me to strong pain killers."

Eliot's mouth twitched. It seemed that even an afternoon with a dentist couldn't stop Nate's sense of humor. "No, these are a temporary fix for the pain until it dies down a bit. You just had four teeth yanked-"

"Please," Nate begged. "Don't remind me."

Eliot patiently continued to hold out the water and pills, knowing that Nate would crack before Eliot would. Nate eventually relented and took the water and downed the pill and then returned to trying to burrow down into the couch.

"You want to watch the weather channel? If you didn't like what they were saying I suppose I could narrate…" Eliot joked.

"I couldn't find Law and Order, I tried."

Eliot dropped down into the armchair by Nate's head and flipped through the channels until he found the show. When he took it off mute, Nate apparently recognized the voices. He opened his eyes and focused them on the screen.

They sat like that for awhile. When commercial hit Nate held out his hand for the remote. Upon receiving it from Eliot, he muted it and craned his neck to meet Eliot's gaze. "I don't like the dentist." The words were flat, and almost painfully obvious.

"I know," Eliot said casually. He was very careful not to show a hint of judgment in his voice- not that there was anything to judge. Even after all this time, the worst part of any injury was the stitches. Eliot couldn't even explain why. He just didn't like the idea of the needle passing through skin, even though he'd stitched both himself and other shut too many times to count.

"But I can understand that sometimes we have to do stuff we don't like. So thanks…for giving me the kick in the rear I needed."

"I didn't mean to scare you, you know. Back in the prison, I mean," Eliot admitted.

Nate looked at him puzzled for a moment. The drugs had to be slowing him down. Nate was usually two steps ahead and all of a sudden he was lagging behind. Having apparently connected the dots, he responded, "I deserved it. You're right. I lied to you guys on that con."

"We thought you didn't trust us…the days after you got arrested, it wasn't pretty. Sophie went shopping and bought a whole new dining room outfit for her place. Hardison busied himself with planning how to break you out of the Interpol holding facility. I had to confiscate the orange soda after the second sleepless night. Parker didn't talk to anyone much. She did throw the plant you gave her off the balcony. I took that as a sign she was pretty pissed."

"And you?" Nate asked. "How did my betrayal affect you?"

Eliot shook his head, glancing away. He didn't want to dwell on what he'd done. "You're on drugs. You're in pain. We shouldn't be having this conversation now-"

"Now's the perfect time. Color me a coward, but the drugs might dull the punch."

Eliot cocked his head at his teammate, searching Nate's face.

Nate sighed, features softening. Whether it was the drugs or exhaustion or just a genuine understanding, Eliot wasn't sure. "I betrayed you guys. I don't know how you've come to trust me again. God knows I don't deserve it. But I need to know the aftereffects of what I did. If only so I don't do it again. In that way, our little one-on-one in the prison was important. Knowing you would protect the others…even from me, if need be, it was a wake-up call. So I'll ask again, what did you do while I was slumming in an Interpol holding cell waiting to be charged?"

"I stayed around. The others, they holed up. Sophie didn't come out of her apartment much and Parker spent most of her time on the roof working on her rappelling rigs and God knows what else. Hardison was glued to his computer. I've done this dance before. Having someone to lean on makes a world of a difference. I cooked team dinners, even if everyone filed in and out at their leisure. I was around when they stopped in for a plateful of food."

"You were there for them," Nate responded, speaking the words slowly. Tasting them. "You were there for them when I turned my back on them all. I wondered why the team didn't break up after that…it was the thing I feared most. Now I know. You held them together."

Eliot shook his head. "Everyone did that. They came to their senses after a few days of moping and we committed to staying together. What we do is important."

"You stayed around the whole time? That had to be taxing…and it was all on my account. You, the whole team, would've never been put in such a predicament if not for me." Nate's gaze was intense, and Eliot wanted to hide beneath the scrutiny.

"You did what you thought would keep us safe. In hindsight, we can't blame you much for that. I would've done the same," Eliot replied. It wasn't as big a deal as Nate was making it out to sound. After all, his motives hadn't been completely selfless- for the first time in his life, he'd been unable to simply move onto his next job. He'd needed to hold the team together for Nate's return. His instincts had clamored for it, and his instincts were almost never wrong. "As for my coping mechanism, I broke the chain on my punching bag. I had to get a new one," he said, shrugging.

"I should reimburse you," Nate replied.

The comment seemed a bit odd to Eliot; they all had plenty of money. Then again, Nate was on drugs. There was only so much coherency you could come to expect. If it would ease his guilty conscious, maybe he would take the payment.

Eliot smiled a little, and Nate's soft features broke into that grin that made him seem years younger. "We'll see. Maybe when you're feeling better. Your show's back, you want to watch it more?"

Nate nodded, prompting Eliot to take the TV off mute. They watched the rest of the episode together in a mutual, comfortable silence. Eliot glanced over at Nate every few minutes to check on him, waiting for the inevitable. It only took twenty minutes for Nate's eyelids to sink down over his eyes. The snoring came soon after that, prompting Eliot to smile.

Eliot turned the volume on the TV down low so it was nothing more than a dull murmur in the background. He switched out the mostly-melted ice pack for a fresh one, leaning it against his cheek on Nate's pillow. When all of that said and done, he spread a blanket over Nate's prone body and whispered low in his ear. "You think I protected all the others in your absence despite what you did. However, I'd do the same for you, Nate- _because_ of who you are, not despite it. Don't you ever forget that. You don't get to pick your family. But having found you guys, don't plan on getting rid of us, of me, that easily. I'm a hard one to shake."

Eliot rose from his crouch, settling back down into his chair and maintained his vigil through the day and into the night before drifting off at Nate's side. He slept better that night than he had in a very, very long time.

-THE END-

-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-


End file.
